Letters to the Editor — February 7, 2013

Thursday

Feb 7, 2013 at 3:15 AM

To the Editor:

My name is Cynthia Wyatt and I have served on Milton’s Conservation Commission for the last 15 years. Milton’s Select Board has submitted a warrant article to discontinue funding Milton’s Conservation Fund with 50 percent of revenues collected from land use change tax penalties (LUCT). Milton approved this funding by town vote in 2002 pursuant to RSA 79-A. LUCT is the only source of funding for Milton’s Conservation Fund. LUCT is a penalty (10 percent of fair market value) paid to the town by landowners who choose to take their property out of current use for development. LUCT money from development is funneled back into future conservation projects. LUCT is not Milton taxpayers’ money. Most of Milton’s neighboring towns contribute all or part of LUCT to their Conservation Funds.

Over the years, New Hampshire’s Legislature has enacted important legislation such as RSA 79-A to support local conservation efforts because it is in the public interest to do so. The preservation of important natural resource areas is not only vital for the protection of our air, water, scenic and recreational areas, but also for our local economy. Conservation lands impose few if any costs on local government. Additionally, conservation lands support and promote the Tourism and Forest Products Industries in NH, which are significant income and job producers to Milton and all NH communities.

Milton’s visual, economic, and recreational centerpieces are the Milton Three Ponds. The Milton Conservation Commission has worked hard over the years to develop policies and practices in the Natural Resources chapter of Milton’s Master Plan to ensure Milton’s water quality for the health and welfare of its citizens as well as the economic health of its communities. One of the most effective ways to do so is by providing funding for voluntary conservation easement projects that permanently conserve private forest lands. Forest lands provide critical filtering buffers for Milton’s ground and surface waters.

Funding for conservation easements and their associated high costs typically require quick action due to purchase and sales deadlines. In order to assist and expedite important conservation projects, the State passed enabling legislation to allow towns to establish conservation funds and to transfer LUCT to those funds.

In Milton, many conservation easements on private lands such as the 370 acre Salmon Falls Headwater lands in Milton Mills have been facilitated with help from Milton’s Conservation Fund. These conservation projects fulfill the conservation objectives of Milton’s Master plan by protecting Milton’s water resources, forestlands, wildlife habitat, farmland, and recreational areas. The preservation of Milton’s scenic beauty and rural character and the protection of the Salmon Falls Watershed and Milton’s public drinking supply also provide profound, long lasting benefits for Milton’s economy. In every aspect, the preservation of Milton’s important natural resources is in the public interest of Milton’s communities.

Cynthia Wyatt

Milton Mills

To the Editor:

Pressed for time, I only got to listen to a few minutes of the lengthy Senate Confirmation Hearing on the appointment of former Senator (R-Nebraska) Chuck Hagel to Secretary of Defense. However, these were the most critical minutes as Hagel was getting grilled by Senator John McCain and were all I needed to be convinced that Hagel is the right person for the job.

McCain, who I believe should understand better than anyone, the potential cost of war, relentlessly pursued an aggressive line of questioning designed to gather a Soviet Union- style confession from Hagel about his being wrong on his nonsupport of McCain’s pet 2007 “Surge” (escalation for counterinsurgency operations) of troops in Iraq. It’s also pertinent to mention that Hagel was the most outspoken Republican critic of the Bush Administration’s Iraq policy.

When pushed by McCain, who was not prepared to handle the truth, Hagel pushed back, “To the comment I made about the most dangerous foreign policy decision since Vietnam — was about not just the surge but the overall war of choice going into Iraq. That particular decision that was made on the surge, but more to the point, our war in Iraq, I think was the most fundamentally bad, dangerous decision since Vietnam. Aside from the costs that occurred in this country to blood and treasure, aside what that did to take our focus off of Afghanistan, which in fact was the original and real focus of a national threat to this country — Iraq was not — …. ”

That answer alone made it clear that Sergeant Hagel, who served as an Army infantry squad leader and was wounded twice in Vietnam, is a reluctant yet willing warrior if the cause is just and all other options have been exhausted. It was also abundantly evident a decade ago that Iraq, which is still very relevant, did not fit that criteria unless one considers executing “The Surge” as justification for starting a war that, like Afghanistan, still hasn’t been paid for (see Iraq War effect on National Debt) at an extremely high cost as stated by Hagel.

Wayne H. Merritt

Dover

To the Editor:

On Jan. 31, the Somersworth Democratic Committee caucused to elect officers and convention delegates for the new biennium at the Somersworth City Hall.

John Joyal (popularly known as JJ) replaces Mr. Connell as chair. JJ has been active in local and national elections and is a union leader at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. He is joined by activist David Holt as vice chair, replacing Dick LaBonte, a long time activist. Muriel Pierce and Don Routhier will continue on as secretary and treasurer. JJ was quick to stress the need to help our candidates in their election efforts.

Four delegates were chosen for the New Hampshire State 2013 and 2014 conventions: Dana Hilliard, Jennifer Soldati Sean Collins and Jessica Paradis, who are all active in Democratic politics and are sure to energize local Democratic activity.

We are eagerly anticipating this year’s city-wide elections and next year’s Jeanne Shaheen Senatorial re-election as well as Carol Shea-Porter’s re-election and Governor Maggie Hassan’s re-election.

Hiram Connell

Somersworth

To the Editor:

This letter is a rebuttal to B.J. Figueredo’s Jan. 31 letter. It is not meant to be adversarial nor offensive, only enlightening.

The vision I had written about, and to which B.J. Figueredo strongly and religiously objected, was, in my sincere and humble belief, a genuine spiritual vision. It was not a lie on my part, nor was it a product of my imagination, nor was it a delusion caused by my bipolar disorder.

Although I cannot prove the reality of my vision, nor can I expect the majority of the public to believe me, I nonetheless believe in the reality of my psychic abilities. It is, in fact, possible for a person with mental illness to have a degree of real psychic ability which includes mystical experiences such as genuine spiritual visions.

If my vision is taken at face value, rather than rejected, denied, scoffed at, or misunderstood, then whatever objection B.J. Figueredo has with it is not my problem, but his. The problem, therefore, lies between him and God, not between him and me.

Again, I do not wish to be adversarial nor offensive, only enlightening. May we all come to know the divine Christ within.

Alex J. Boros

Rochester

To the Editor:

Mr. Boros... once again, Alex, you are off — way off — in left field ... and this time in a literal, as well as a figurative sense.

“Redistribution of wealth” is the oldest con in the book, used as an excuse by the lazy, the shiftless, the envious (Ex. 20:17) to justify their taking something they haven’t earned and to which they’ve neither claim nor right from its legitimate owners.

The fact is that while the Good Book agrees with you that wealth is a gift from God (read Ecclesiastes), it also calls for earning it honestly, and much more important, effectively says, “if it’s yours, it’s yours” (i.e. Mt 20:15 and Acts 5:4).

There are in fact five ways of using your wealth:

1. Hoarding it ... the meanest, least worthy way of all, which profits no one, not even the owner.

2. Spending it to give yourself a life of unlimited hedonism ... not exactly commendable, but at least understandable ... and very, very human!

3. Using, misusing and abusing it to put yourself in a position or power over your fellow man, a la Lex Luthor, or worse, to promote terror, hate, bloodshed and grief, a la Osama Bin Laden.

4. Using it to help your fellow man ... Ho Chi Minh (remember him?) claimed to have read the Bible, and on that basis, called Jesus “the 1st Communist”! Wrong. Jesus called upon you to give of what you have left over, once your own necessities have been met, to help the less fortunate. Communism takes what you have “in the name, and for the benefit of ‘the people.’”

5. Give it all away to the poor and then follow him (Mt. 19:21)!

In short, and in a nutshell, the answer to your question as to what sort of society is it that encourages greed, the answer is, as you can see, quite simple: a society that has forgotten God.

Fortunately for us, God is not like that. We may deliberately put him away from our minds, ourselves, but He won’t do the same to us.

And to Ms. Newhall: Let me speak to you in a way you will understand ...

Everybody knows about the Ice Age. But what many people don’t seem to understand is that it wasn’t one long period of freezing cold, but a cycle of alternating hot and cold periods (no less than five in the past 50,000 years), and the temperatures were so high during the “hot” periods that had you stood on the banks of the Thames in one of them (which, oh my goodness had come about with us having absolutely nothing to do with it), you’d have thought you were seeing the Congo or the Zambezi.

Yet, seeing as how there are polar bears now, and according to all those “Nature” specials, it takes between 50,000 years (in the case of empty-niche’d and isolated islands) and 5,000,000 (in the case of competition and niche-rich continents) for new species to develop, one is forced to reach the inescapable conclusion that they survived the periods of warmth. And if they could — and did — survive those, in which the global temperatures were so much higher, then they can, and probably will, survive “our” global warming period as well.

To paraphrase millionaire John Hammond (the creator of Jurassic Park), at the end of the second JP movie, “Nature doesn’t need our help. All she needs is for us to have the humility to accept our limitations, step aside, and refrain from interfering.”

Some of the worst mistakes are made with the best of intentions ... but good intentions do not make mistakes right nor excuse the consequences. (After all, we know which road is paved with them, don’t we?)

Let the polar bears be. They don’t need our help. What they need is for us refraining from throwing a monkey wrench in the works.

Mt. 11:15.

BJ Figueredo

Gonic

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